Earlier today we listened with bemused fascination as Blythe Masters explained to CNBC how JPMorgan's trading business is "about assisting clients in executing, managing, their risks and ensuring access to capital so they can make the kind of large long-term investments that are needed in the long run to expand the supply of commodities." You know - provide liquidity. Like the High Freaks. We were even ready to believe it, especially when Blythe conveniently added that JPM has a "matched book" meaning no net prop exposure, since the opposite would indicate breach of the Volcker Rule. ...And then we read this: "A JPMorgan Chase & Co. trader of derivatives linked to the financial health of corporations has amassed positions so large that he’s driving price moves in the multi-trillion dollar market, according to traders outside the firm." Say what? A JPMorgan trader has a prop (not flow, not client, not non-discretionary) position so big it is moving the entire market? And we are talking hundreds of billions of CDS notional. But... that would mean everything Blythe said is one big lie... It would also mean that JPMorgan is blatantly and without any regard for legislation, ignoring the Volcker rule, which arrived in the aftermath of Merrill Lynch doing precisely this with various CDO and credit indexes, and "moving the market" only to blow itself up and cost taxpayers billions when the bets all LTCMed. But wait, it gets better: "In some cases, [the trader] is believed to have “broken” the index -- Wall Street lingo for the market dysfunction that occurs when a price gap opens up between the index and its underlying constituents." So JPMorgan is now privately accused of "breaking" the CDS Index market, courtesy of its second to none economy of scale and fear no reprisal for any and all actions, and in the process causing untold losses to, you guessed it, its clients, but when it comes to allegations of massive manipulation in the precious metals market, why Blythe will tell you it is all about "assisting clients in executing, managing, their risks." Which client would that be - Lehman, or MFGlobal? Perhaps it is time for a follow up interview, Ms Masters to clarify some of these outstanding points?

The trader is London-based Bruno Iksil, according to five counterparts at hedge funds and rival banks who requested anonymity because they’re not authorized to discuss the transactions. He specializes in credit-derivative indexes, an off-exchange market that during the past decade has overtaken corporate bonds to become the biggest forum for investors betting on the likelihood of company defaults.

Investors complain that Iksil’s trades may be distorting prices, affecting bondholders who use the instruments to hedge hundreds of billions of dollars of fixed-income holdings. Analysts and economists also use the indexes to help gauge interest rates that companies must pay for new credit.

Though Iksil reveals little to other traders about his own positions, they say they’ve taken the opposite side of transactions and that his orders are the biggest they’ve encountered. Two hedge-fund traders said they have seen unusually large price swings when they were told by dealers that Iksil was in the market.

So how long until Bruno Iksil, and his massive one way bet, becomes the next Glenn Hadden, or the next Howie Hubler, or the next Boaz Weinsten? And how long until US taxpayer have to bail him out, either with direct rescue money, or with commingled deposits used to plug trading losses? Because MFGlobal was just an appetizer as to how JPM operates with "segregated" money.

Repeating the punchline again, because it bears repeating.

In some cases, Iksil is believed to have “broken” the index -- Wall Street lingo for the market dysfunction that occurs when a price gap opens up between the index and its underlying constituents, the people said. The persistence of price dislocations has frustrated some hedge funds that were betting on the gap to close over time, the people said.

And that, for those confused, is how JPMorgan operates: they lie about everything, fully aware they have perpetual immunity because they are more powerful than the Fed (just recall Jamie Dimon's symbolic spitting in the face of Ben Bernanke), they are a tri-party repo dealer thus in the center of the entire shadow banking system, and have the biggest single-bank derivative exposure in the world, at $70 trillion as of December 31.

JPMorgan is modern finance.

And because of they they can and will get away with everything, lying on prime time TV most certainly included.

Yet while JPMorgan may manipulate the gold, silver, or any other market, for its or the Fed's agenda, there is a silver lining: it allows everyone to buy physical assets at artificially deflated paper spot prices. And for that, JPM should be thanked. Because until the grand reset takes place, JPMorgan will never be held accountable for any of its actions in the current status quo regime. Period.

at the depths of the Panic of 1893, the Federal Treasury was nearly out of gold. President Grover Cleveland accepted Morgan's offer to join with the Rothschilds and supply the U.S. Treasury with 3.5 million ounces of gold.

In 1912, the Pujo Committee found that a cabal of financial leaders were abusing their public trust to consolidate control over many industries: the partners of J.P. Morgan & Co. along with the directors of First National and National City Bank controlled aggregate resources of $22.245 billion. Louis Brandeis, later a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, compared this sum to the value of all the property in the twenty-two states west of the Mississippi River

Easy to do when Americans are proud idiots. Repeal of Glass Steagall allowed banksters to do a repeat of early 1900s. Government is broke, so borrows from private capital of banksters giving banksters power over nation's laws and resources.

I dont know if this little thought experiment would work in practice? Just posted it on my blog:

Pearlsforswine.wordpress.com

How to break silver with no money down:

if rumours regarding the manipulation of the silver market by large government related interests (utilizing JP Morgan as a vehicle) are true and if (as is certainly the case) the paper silver market (slv etc.) is run on a fractional reserve basis then it would certainly be possible for a large enough entity, if so interested, to expose these facts (and crash the paper silver market) for essentially no risk.
How might this stupendous feat be achieved you ask. Well in essence the entity (maybe a govenment or bank I don't know, maybe a foreign power such as Iran) would purchase enormous amounts of the metal for physical delivery (enough to test the aforementioned sceptical hypotheses) whilst simultaneously purchasing an off-setting position in the paper market. The entity would have to insist on physical delivery of course and if the exchange (presumably Comex) could not deliver, well, one would think, that would amount to cornering the market in physical silver and would prevent contracts held by other parties being fulfilled as well. All hell would break loose, no? And if the pressure were to be maintained by the entity concerned it would surely break the paper market ultimately?
How to profit from someone someday doing something like this? Simply mimick their position (long physical short paper) and wait indefinitely. Double win for no risk, no?

You assume these sock puppets actually read their emails. And if they do, heed them. All it is - emailing them - and exposing your intelligence, is alert Homeland Security to link you with their ever-expanding data base of "dangerous people to be watched closer".

JP Morgan doesn't exist for investors, it exists to protect the super elites' (Rockefellers, Rothchilds, Morgans, etc.) wealth by having their hands in every industry so that nobody will top them.

When you become a billionare, you put your work in government and wealth in banks to diversify. When you own the land and its law you don't care which particular industry does well as risks are spread around.

Ironic thing is that people do banking with the biggest banks (wealthiest owners) because of fear and rich get richer because smaller poor banks (rich but not superrich) are not given the chance.

You never get quality from biggest anything (government, non-profit, restaurants, businesses) because quality doesn't scale. Thus winner takes all games (government, banks, religion) that never reset always end up serving McDonald's quality service and products. Only thing you get is decreased risk, and bulge bracket banksters took advantage of this trust by gambling with it.

Give a chance to the smaller banks who can only compete on superior product/service....

Sorry, I love this song. It must be the 1/4 British ancestry ... explains my horribly dark/dry sense of humor ... or maybe I am just autistic ... you decide ...

Fuck, folks, the markets are calling in dead ... for FSCKING years now ... and investors are like the employer that can't do the math.

FYI, the produced recording is MUCH better, this is all I could find. I think he tries to hard at times, but the song is good. This is the only performance on youtube, which is live, and not that good, but ...

+1. Just another modern day gangster. They know they are not working in the best interest of humanity or nation. This is power and wealth at any cost. Consequences don't matter - especially when the system is captured. Kill or be killed mentality. A blood sport at this point.

As always, human evolution tramples it's greatest promises with typical Alpha behavior. Maybe some other species will do better than us. I doubt it though. Which leads to the hypothesis that the reason we dont see more intellegent life in the universe that is capabable of interstellar travel is that most intelligent species don't outlive thier industrial age (adolescence).

She didn't look as pretty on CNBS as she does in photos, and the accent just doesn't do it for me. Sorry Blythe, gonna have to turn the page and move on. I hope you understand, it's me. I guess I'm just not into you.

No kidding, I never heard about this institution and it has at least a Trillion if not more that is warping the CDS market. I've said this before, I think that there is a few monsters under the dark sea of finance that we have seen the shape but not the creature. When it breaks the water surface we will know for a fact. Also if you think that MF Global was the only one doing what they did, I have a bridge to sell you dirt cheap.